September 12
Bunratty Heights was a pretty decent B&B, but it didn't quite "WOW" us like the previous 2 we stayed at in Castleisland and Killarney. But it was comfortable, and the hostess was polite and friendly. 
We headed out a little earlier so that we could spend ample time at the Cliffs of Moher and whatever else caught our fancy that day, with a tip from our hostess that we just HAD to check out this little town. Well, we saw a sign to said little town, and before long, realized that this town was actually past Doolin, where we were headed, so we buzzed up to Doolin instead.
Doolin Cave
We decided to check out the Doolin Cave around 11am, and soon realized the timing was pretty bad. There was this little church that was just letting out, and we sat in traffic for over 30 minutes, just waiting for the congregation to clear the road and make enough room in the road to let us by.
At first, we were a little concerned that this expensive (15 euro each) attraction was a dud, when we saw that we were the ONLY visitors. We decided to go for it anyway, and it was really neat to get our very own, personal tour (usually, the groups cap out at 20, so it was nice to have the personal attention!)
We headed down an insane amount of stairs to get to the bottom of the cave, then grabbed hard-hats and made our way through the low cave. (Good thing for the hard-hats, or we might have had concussions, as many times as we hit our heads on the ceiling!)
It was really dark in the tunnels, and we finally came into this huge cavern, where we couldn't even see our hands in front of our face. I will tell you right now that these pictures absolutely do NOT do this stalactite justice. The thing weighs 20,000lbs! It's enormous, and it's just humbling to be in the same room with it! It is the 2nd largest stalactite in the WORLD (1st largest being in Brazil, and not as easy to get at), and wasn't discovered that long ago.
We honestly weren't expecting to be as WOW'd by the cave and stalactite, but it was absolutely incredible!
After the cave, we headed down to the Doolin Pier to look into taking a cruise out to the Cliffs of Moher, but found that with the tide being out so far, we would have to wait until 3:30pm (it was 12:15pm). We were bummed to have to wait so long, but decided to do it anyway, so we headed up to the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre to check out the cliffs from the top end first.
Cliffs of Moher (Visitor Centre)
The cliffs were magnificent, and we thoroughly enjoyed taking in the incredible view! We tried for a few self pics there, but MAN was it ever windy!
One thing that really detracted from the Cliffs of Moher was how incredibly touristy the surrounding area was. I mean, going to a tourist destination, you expect to see tourists, obviously, but it was really tough to see SO many people crowding around the place. I can't even imagine how incredible it must have been before the center was built and to have just been able to walk up there with no cement railings and buildings and what not, and just see the cliffs in their natural state. Must have been incredible - even moreso than they were when we were there!
We walked up the pathway (past yet another musician begging for a few euro), and came upon this cool castle like place, where the views were pretty spectacular as well!
As we were walking along the path to the other side, on our way to actually standing ON the cliffs, we came across this memorial to the people who have lost their lives on the cliffs.
I was expecting this, actually. During my research on the Cliffs of Moher, I read that many people actually commit suicide here, and that until the visitor centre was built, people would come here to jump from the cliffs, leaving a suicide note behind. The centre was built in an effort to stop this, but so as not to be insensitive, this memorial was built.
So....then we decided to be really naughty and/or gutsy and "break the rules". We walked past the marked paths, past this sign, and onto the "unsafe" portion of the cliffs. (Mom, if you recall the day when I emailed you to say that you should be glad you didn't know what we were doing this day - THIS would be the day)
And yes, it was a VERY long ways down, and there were no guardrails, and we could have cracked right off at any minute, but WOW what a view!!
Considering I'm writing this blog entry, and I'm not recovering in the hospital (or 6 feet under), we DID make it off this dangerous cliff, then heading down to the Doolin Pier again to catch our cruise out to the cliffs - taking a different view, from the bottom instead of the top!
It was a pretty drizzly and foggy day for a cruise - not to mention choppy - but Mark found the "Emergency Exit" window, and we visited with a couple from Michigan while we attacked those waves!
The ride was SO rocky, and after a while being up on top of the boat, we decided to head back downstairs to give some of the other passengers a chance to take some pictures. As all the seats on the outside of the cabin were taken, we tried to head into the cabin, but quickly realized that was a VERY bad move, with all the "sickies" in there.
We made it back alive (yet again!), and decided to skip any other stops we might have had on "the list" and head on to our hotel in Galway for the night. We were pretty tired from all the activity of the past few days, and decided to call it an early night.
We found our hotel - the Clayton Hotel - in Galway pretty easily (having learned to STOP at our first hint of being turned around), and were sadly excited to see a KFC across the street from it. We checked in, then grabbed some KFC for supper, and then were total bums in our rooms that night. Of course, I had a need for facebook that night - to check out
Full Photo dump here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rompte/Ireland08DoolinCaveCliffsOfMoher
http://picasaweb.google.com/rompte/Ireland08DoolinCaveCliffsOfMoher
